January 9th 2004
Lisa 33
Alan 34
Olivia 13
Owen 4
Leave home at 6pm stop to get gas and stopped at DQ for hamburger and hot dog for the kids. Just a soda for me and Al, we had a late lunch.
Drive to St. Louis stop at Krispy Kreme ($7.00) for donuts since there is no free breakfast at hotel in the morning. Went to Renaissance at airport and checked in. Unloaded all the suitcase’s up to the room! Watched TV had a donut or two and went to bed about 10:00-10:30.
Up at 5am! Shuttle to the airport. Security went fine got some cinnabon’s since we had eaten some of the donuts last night. Also got some milks( almost $10.00).
Board on time and land at 10:30am in Tampa.
Shuttle to National! Never again! They have moved off site! Hate offsite rental places. Didn’t know this or wouldn’t have booked it. I kept thinking about the ressie I had canceled at Dollar and it was right there IN the airport!
Got our full size car which would have been fine if we had one less big suitcase and no stroller. But it got ugly when we had to put the cooler between the kids and Olivia had to ride with a duffle bag on her lap! She acted like we had asked her to ride on the roof of the car. And she also acted as if we had some other choice. After setting her straight we headed off to Orlando. Couldn’t feel my legs most of the way since they were so cramped up with bags on floor in front seat. On road at 11:45. Did I mention that it is FREEZING!
Kids slept the whole way. Lib used her duffle as a pillow. Arrived at Disney’s Pop Century at 1pm. Huge line to check in since so many were there for just one night because of the marathon. Everywhere we looked where people for the marathon. But the kids watched cartoons and we waited. At least I got the feeling back in my legs and we were all just happy to be there.
The lady who checked us in gave us a choice of 50’s or 70’s buildings. We chose 70’s. Plus the room was ready! We found a parking place without too much trouble and unloaded a ton and a half of stuff! Got it all to the room, took some pics 1st then Al and the kids watched cartoons and chilled out while I unpacked everything. The key to having enough space for 4 here is to have lots of extra hangers. I had brought my own and I got busy with that and organized like at fool. We called to have someone come check on the air in the room it was cold outside and hot in the room! I think it was in the 50’s outside but it was really warm in there. Someone came and did something to it that really helped a lot! We were never warm in that room again.
Now down to the food court to check it out and buy our mugs. I have been waiting for this! Not sure why I was so excited about it. The only other mugs we own are for POFQ and one for the beach club. But for some reason this was a big deal for all of us. We filled them up and headed out.
We headed off towards the outlets since we only have a car for 1 day. On our way we stopped for a quick snack at Chick-fil-a. I called home while we were there. Then we headed to the close by outlets. Owen got a very nice Buzz fleece for $5.00 and I got some wooden mickey candle holders. We got some other small things but that was it. Then over to the Holiday Inn Family Suites. We have stayed here on 2 other trips but this time we were just going to use the $25.00 gift card I had ordered for $2.00. Well this meal was not worth it! Yuck, just not good at all and even with the $25 gift card we still had to pay $18.00! Even for free I would complain about this meal but for it to have cost me $20! I was not happy.
Now off to walmart for supplies. Can’t remember how much we spent but we got bread, milk, juice, deli meat & cheese, bagels, cream cheese, grapes, and other snack items.
Got back to the hotel just after 7:00 and filled our mugs with hot chocolate. And man is that stuff HOT! Iced down our cold stuff in the collapsible cooler on wheels we brought from home. It worked great we just wheeled it down to the ice machine. Plus it was small not huge.
Went to bed late 10-11pm. Did I mention it was freezing!
Forgot to mention that at some point today we spent some serious time in the game room during the daytime when everyone was at the parks. It was very nice or I wouldn’t have been there I usually hate game rooms.
Favorite thing/most fun for today: Just arriving, having the room ready early and getting settled in. Also seeing Pop Century for the 1st time.
Worst thing: stuffing all our junk into that rental car! And the meal at Holiday inn.
Marathon Day! Lucky for us we were not in it!
This was a non park day for us. We were avoiding the parks on the weekends hoping to avoid the crowds. We slept in a little (for Disney) and left the hotel at 10am to go eat a big breakfast buffet offsite while we still had the car. All the other days here we are eating breakfast in the room. Then we made a stop at Eckard drug store for a little more moleskin. I had brought plenty but the idea of running out and not having a car scared me. I am the queen of blisters. Back to the hotel and we got to see lots of marathon runners. On the way back when we got almost in front of HIFS on that 4 lane highway there was some strange woman standing in the median with her hands over her head doing a crazy dance! And I mean crazy she was sticking her butt out and shaking it dancing around and then Alan said that she was mooning people. He saw this in the rear view mirror so luckily we never had to see it with our eyes! Well this lady looked perfectly normal and her SUV was parked across the street at the exit to MOWC ( Marriott world center) with people in it. We think maybe she was doing a happy dance about being at Disney!?!? But this will come into play again later.
Back at Pop Alan and lib dropped off me and Owen so they could go return the rental car. They were taking it to the Dolphin hotel.
Owen and I hung around the room for awhile then went and filled our mugs and sat at the playground. He played and played. I waited and waited! Took over an hour for them to get back. After they returned it they walked to MGM and caught a bus back to the hotel. It was now about 2pm.We walked all around the resort with the camcorder and took in all the sights. Stopped by the game room again and were in there forever. Then we all went to the room and watched cartoons and relaxed for about an hour and had some snacks. Then around 3-4 we caught a bus to blizzard beach to play mini-golf. We had the place to ourselves. The kids paid for their golf with there money since it is so expensive. Plus they are the ones that wanted to do it anyway. We had a blast! Never knew mini-golf could be so much fun! Owen was very funny and had a better score than Lib. He also got a hole in one!
Done around 5ish and went out to wait for a bus. Well we waited for quite a while and since we were the only people within sight we were acting kind of silly since we were all in such good moods. We were going to either take the Pop bus OR if the OKW bus came we were going to take it and catch the boat over to Downtown Disney for dinner. So 2 of us waited at one bus stop and 2 at the other. And that is when we got crazy. There was music playing and we were all dancing around (remember NO ONE else is out there). Well Alan does some silly dance move and he is clear down at the other bus stop and to show him up I do an imitation of the nutty lady on the highway from earlier today. Of course minus the mooning part but I did do a fake out moon. You know what I mean I did NOT moon anyone just pretended like I was going to. So about 5-10 minutes later here comes a Disney security van. I think nothing of it she drives past Alan and Owen and pulls up in front of me and Lib and asks what we are doing? Waiting for the bus I say. She want’s to know what bus and why we were willing to go to either POP or OKW and I explained about DTD and eating dinner. She wanted to know if we were staying onsite? Of course all this time I am super sweet and nice not mad that we have been waiting almost 30 minutes for a bus and have only seen one go by! She says pick a place which bus do we want? I say OKW she says it will be right here. Then she pulls away and parks over to the side and just sits and watches us. It was then that I thought I’ll bet some security camera has reported us causing trouble out here because she didn’t take her eyes off of me! Also she wasn’t concerned about my husband, drove right by him just stopped to talk to me! So I told this to the family and they all start cracking up and agreed with me! We got on our OKW bus and the security person left the area when we did! We were laughing about this all the way to OKW. And they were teasing me all week that security was watching me. It was something we will never forget!
We arrive at OKW without any other issues and take some pics of Olivia in front of Olivia’s (we ate here on other trips ) while we waited for the boat. Then we froze to death on the boat ride. At DTD we walked around and bought nothing except lib bought her white chocolate characters on a stick that she always must have several of! They were all impressed that I knew about the free samples at Ghirardelli’s. It is now that we realize we are exhausted and there is nothing there we want to eat that won’t take an hour or two wait so we just get a bus and go back to Pop. Should have just done this in the 1st place. Everytime we go to DTD we always buy nothing and hate the crowds and end up leaving.
Had pizza and breadsticks at hotel and used our mugs $18.00. Owen fell asleep while waiting for the bus so he slept all the way back and the whole time we ate. He woke when we were done and had a ham and cheese sandwich in the room.
Watched tv and went to bed. Tomarrow is 1st park day!
Favorite thing/most fun for the day: Definitely would have to been playing mini-golf and our adventure waiting for the bus.
Worst: nothing except being drilled by security.
Early entry at Magic Kingdom.
We haven’t stayed onsite in a few years so EE is new again to us.
Up at 6am for me and 6:30 for the rest. (yes, mom 6am for me and yes I was up before the others!!) Got to MK about 8:10-8:15 and did all of Fantasyland with all walk ons then waited 5-10 for the speedway. Then over and rode Buzz 3 times and bought a pic of the kids and had it sent to the hotel. I really think I am big stuff with this staying onsite now!
Alan and lib rode Space Mountain while owen and I do the TTA and buzz again. Then over to adventureland where alan is on the hunt for those egg rolls we love. However, there are no egg rolls at 10:30am. So we went over to Big Thunder and ALL rode. This was Owen’s 1st time on and while he did really well he did not want to go again. So Lib and I went again. Then back to the egg roll cart and yes! They were open. After eating them we went on the magic carpets then cut through and went to the Woody show that also has Jessie. Owen just stood there in awe. He has seen these characters many times but when it comes to the toy story gang he is in awe! After this show we left the park. Back to the room and ate ham sandwiches, watched TV and slept for an hour. They would have slept longer but I woke them all up and said let’s get going! This was at 3:00.
Took bus to MGM for evening. Got there just as parade was starting so we watched it over by the Drew Carey thing. It was past us at exactly 3:47 and we had a PS at 3:50! So we hurried over to the Sci-Fi dine-in and were seated right away. But not a great seat, our car was all the way over to the side in the 1st row and there was another couple in our 3rd seat. The place was almost empty so I don’t know why they did this. We should have said something but we didn’t. This place was really cool looking we have never been in here before and were all impressed. We ordered shakes and Owen got a hot dog kids meal, alan had a burger & fries and lib and I split a burger and fries. However, her and I were both wishing we had our own they were very good and we both could have eaten our own. Our waiter took a pic of us in the car but of course we have the other couple in the back seat! How dumb does that look!
After we left here Al and Lib wanted to go hit the Rock-n-Roller coaster and Tower of Terror. So we split up. Owen and I went over to Pizza Planet to look around and took a couple pics of him outside with the big Buzz. Then we were going to go over to the HISTA playground but it was closed! Now what is up with that. Closes at 5pm but the park is open till 7pm. Went to Great Movie Ride but it was closed for technical problems and I was not happy. I have 1 hour to kill and can’t find anything for us that is open. Owen didn’t want to go see the Little Mermaid show but it was all there was left at this point so we waited the 20 minutes for it to start and went in. He didn’t like the scary parts but did fine. After this we went to meet the others in front of Tower of Terror. We were supposed to be meeting at 6 but they didn’t show up till almost 6:20. They were having so much time riding and when they came out at 5 till 6 we weren’t there so they went on again. We went back to find seat for Fantasmic. Got seated be one of those annoying families, of course! Alan went and got us some popcorn and soda before the show started. This is not our favorite show I prefer any thing that is at MK and Illuminations over this show. But everyone always loves it so we keep giving it another chance but we just don’t see what is so wonderful especially when you have to fight the crowds to get out of there. We would much rather head back to the resort and relax for the evening. Although I will say that Owen did like it his eyes were huge and it scared him but just a little. I guess just enough for him to like it. He talked about it for awhile after.
So we made our way out and to the bus. Back to the room to relax awhile then down for some hot chocolate later and the ATM!
Favorite thing/most fun today: Sci-fi Dine in was very fun and new to us. Also early entry at MK.
Worst: things being closed at MGM before closing. This is not the 1st time that we have had this happen.
I was up at 7:00 and the rest of them up at 7:30. For some reason it seems to take me 30 minutes longer in the mornings so I get up 1st. This could be because I am getting myself ready and yelling like a drill sergent at them while fixing our breakfasts and getting the bag packed up for the day. All Alan does is get himself ready and sometimes throw Owen’s clothes on him. But if I am not up 1st we are way behind. They would lay in bed till noon!
Went to Animal Kingdom today but didn’t get there till 9:30! Why does it take us so long to get ready? We went straight back for the lion king show which was about to start and got seats in a section we have never sat in before. That was nice since we are always in the same section. After the show we saw the characters from Brother Bear before heading back to the safari. There was only a 10 min. wait then we tried walking through to see some gorillas. We did see one but that was it. Now it was time to head over to the Chakranadi Chicken Shop in Asia. I have heard this is very good and have tried to eat here on at least 2 other trips but it is always off season and closed or maybe too late in the day. Well it was open! WooHoo Alan and I had this while the kids split a huge hot dog and had French fries from Mcd’s. That was all they had in the area that they would eat. The chicken satay with rice was good though. I will be back to try that again.
Now off to Dinoland. Lib and I rode the coater about 6 times in a row and sometimes without even getting off! Gotta love the slow season! Alan and Owen played a few games and he won a stuffed dino. As we Lib and I were walking off after our last ride she got a bloody nose! She hasn’t had one of these in a couple years. So we took care of that. Also one funny thing about Owen, he will ride Dumbo and the Magic Carpets but he will NOT ride Triceratop Spin! They are pretty much the same darn thing but he will have no part of it! He did play in the boneyard and playground too though while we were riding. Then after Lib was all fixed up and better she joined him in the boneyard for about 30 minutes.
From there we went to the tarzan show. Personally I could have lived without this as I have seen it enough and it is not a favorite. However, Alan seemed like that was on the list for next and we should go, so I went. I think truth be told he just wants to be one of the guys (monkeys) that gets to skate around and do tricks all day. All through the lion king show this morning Owen was asking where the monkey’s on skates were at. So see he has a memory of his past Disney trips just not a perfect one. We split 2 of those frozen lemonade things while waiting for the show to start. ($5.00).
After this we left the park slowly because Alan and Owen were pin trading on there way out. I had bought lanyard and 8 pins each for the kids almost a year before the trip. I found them at a Disney store 75% off the lanyards and .90 cents for the pins. Then I put them in there X-mas stockings before the trip. I thought Olivia would enjoy this but I had no idea how much Owen would. He and Alan were always on the look out for Toy Story pins. We had started out with 8 cheap not great pins for trading and ended up with 8 really cute Buzz and Toy Story ones. This gave them something to do when Lib and I were on a ride that Owen couldn’t/wouldn’t ride. Olivia also enjoyed it but not till towards the end of the week. She was trading for pretty much anything she liked but ended up with several cute Tinkerbell pins. I hope I can find a good deal on pins for our next trip. But, I know I will never find them that cheap again.
We took the bus back to the room but, not to nap just to relax. We wish it was warm enough to swim. The kids watch cartoons while Alan and I looked up rental car deals on the laptop hoping to find a van for the way back at a good rate. Well the prices were not good and the rate I had booked was great for the full size so we stuck with that. I must say that I asked him over and over while I was making car rental ressies if a full size would work. There were good deals then on vans too but the full size would save us a little. He said that he thought everything would fit just fine so even though a little voice told me not to I booked that full size. We won’t be doing that again especially with a stroller.
Alan also checked his work email while he had the laptop out. Why he did this I will never understand. This was not a work trip like some of our trips are this was VACATION! I feel like he needs to rest his brain from the stress of work but instead he had to call in and fix some problem. You would think they could live without him for a week and if it had been an emergency they would have called him on his cell. After some dirty looks from me he stopped chit chatting with his co worker and hung up.
It was now about 4pm so we decided to eat dinner at the Pop food court before going to Epcot. Most people love to eat at Epcot but since we didn’t have a PS for dinner and didn’t want to spend too much money. Plus we can never decide where to eat in Epcot, too many choices I guess. By eating at the hotel we could use our mugs again. Alan had a cheese steak sandwich, I had the mom’s dinner special which was roast turkey with stuffing, green beans and mashed potatoes. It was good I was a little worried. Olivia had a personal pizza and Owen went with the nuggets, of course. It was just under $25.00 for dinner. We also had the whole place to ourselves since it was 4-4:30 so it was a very quiet meal.
Grabbed the bus to epcot at almost 6pm and 1st thing we did was send e-mail pics home and to grandma. Then over to mission space, Olivia was very nervous about this one! But she is always nervous about new rides then ends up loving them. She has never met a ride she didn’t like. The wait time was 15min. Owen and I went over to do the Ellen’s Energy thing which I have never done before. I had no idea that it would scare the total crap out of Owen. Who knew it was dark with scary noises. I also didn’t know it would last as long as it did. When we got done I promised him he would never have to that again and that he could have any snack treat he wanted! We went to find the others and Alan was sitting outside Mission Space, he said it gave him a headache but Lib loved it and she went again! (I knew it!) He was also not super happy that he didn’t know where we were since I had not told him we were riding anything. Guess he thought we ran off on him. We all went in the exit area to wait for Lib and there were some benches that a man was about to sit on and this lady told him that someone had just puked there after getting off the ride!! She said that it hadn’t been cleaned up very well! GROSS! Owen made an e-mail pic of himself to send back home.
When lib came off we all went next door to ride test track! This is Owen’s 1st time. He is finally tall enough for some bigger rides. He did really well but said he didn’t want to go again. So to Olivia and I know that it means that her and I will go again alone.
Off to Mexico where Alan bought a Churro which Owen loved once he found out it was covered in sugar. Also bought an apple Danish in Norway for only $1.79. We thought this was a very good deal since it was big enough for all of us to share while we waited for Illuminations. We had our choice of seats, there were empty benches everywhere since it was so cold out. Olivia and I were in shorts and we used the huge napkins from the bakery to cover our legs as we waited. We had a good time sitting here and acting stupid we were wound up and full of energy for some reason. Usually by the time Illuminations starts we are half asleep. But not tonight, we were in rare form. I was pretending that the show was making me cry because I always read about people crying while watching it. They all thought this was very funny. If Magic Kingdom is not involved I will not cry.
After the show we walked slowly out and stopped at Mousegears so Alan and Owen could check the CM’s for pins. Lib and I waited outside on a bench. Of course the Pop Century bus stop is really really far away so it takes us forever to get there but the good news is there was an empty bus waiting for us. We climbed on and it really was empty, just us! We figured we would be sitting here awhile waiting for others but nope! The lady closed the doors and off we went a private bus home after illuminations! Yeah!
Favorite thing/most fun today: Riding primeval whirl with Olivia over and over. Riding test track that thing just makes us laugh. And our good time watching Illuminations and acting silly.
Worst: would have to be Ellens Energy thing I drug Owen on. Also Lib’s nose bleed in AK.
Back to the Magic Kingdom today! The bus was standing room only and I had to stand and try to hold onto Owen. Alan was all the way in the back standing with the stroller. I am fine at standing but it takes both my hands to hold on and I had to keep a hold of Owen. He is so small that every turn we made he would almost fall down. FUN!
We made it to the park at our usual 9:00-9:30am. Owen said …. “straight to BUZZ!, and lets ride it over and over!” so that is what we did. This morning is kind of a blur but, I know we rode buzz a lot and we all rode goofy’s barnstormer together. Olivia rode one last time alone too. Went into the judge’s tent and got some pics and autographs. We wasted some time browsing in the store too. I love that store! So many things so little money! From here we went to see Donalds new 3-D movie and did It’s a small world then off to Crystal Palace for an early lunch. There was nobody here at all. They were all watching the show in front of the castle. However, by the time we left it was very busy. We ate and ate! Olivia said this was her favorite place to eat at now. We have only had breakfast here never lunch so it was new to us. Everything was very good. Even Owen ate. It was not cheap but we were full for the day! Also Owen enjoyed the characters he marched through the place with Tiger and a bunch of kids singing. He had a worried look on his face like he wasn’t sure if this was allowed though.
We made our way to advertureland and walked right on the jungle cruise. Owen has never done this before either. For some reason we haven’t done it in years. Always a long wait I guess? We really enjoyed it and laughed at all of the jokes. Over to Pirates where I looked really hard for Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom (and trust me so did Olivia!) but we didn’t see them anywhere so we just sang along. Owen bought a sword in the store afterward and played around in that store for awhile. There is so much cool stuff there. The man working was really into character and kind of freaked lib out a bit.
As we were leaving we tried to get Owen to go see Captain Hook but he was not falling for that! Lib and I took a restroom break so the guys just sat outside and watched Captain Hook for awhile. Olivia will kill me for adding this but oh well, when were in the bathroom she got her 1st ever thing that girls who are about 13 get. I had to run out and get change from Alan and so now he knew what was going on and she was ready to die! The HORROR! But I told her you will never for get where you were when it 1st happened!
Off to ride Splash Mountain which is my very favorite ride. I could do this all day long. We rode 3 times in a row and then rode Big thunder twice. We were having a good time. There was very little wait, maybe 5 for splash and 5-10 for big thunder. Alan and Owen rode with us once so we could get a picture. Then they walked down and watched the parade while we kept on riding.
At this point we meet up with them after the parade and we are all really getting tired and ready for a break. However, it is too late to go back to the room now because I was determined to see Wishes! So we rode Haunted Mansion, Small World and Peter Pan. Then saw the 3-D show again since we loved it. Fantasyland was just empty because after the show we walked right on Dumbo at 5:30pm!
Don’t know at what point but sometime in the early evening my foot started hurting and felt like a sprain or something. It was VERY painful.
Owen wants to do Buzz again so we head over there and rode several times with no lines. At about 6:30 we went to down Main Street to get the pics we had done this morning in front of the castle but the lines were huge! Now I know why fantasyland and all the rides were walk-ons! EVERYONE was here! They said the pics would still be in the system for 3-4 days. The kids and I sat in the rocking chairs out front while Alan walked around checking out the CM’s pins. We shared a rice krispy treat we had bought on main st.
Once it was 5 till we got up and stood in the street to watch Wishes. Alan had Owen on his shoulders and he fell asleep up there using Alan’s head as a pillow. Since Al could care less about Wishes he said they were going to exit the park and wait on a bench outside. Well they don’t know what they missed! It was great and there may have been real tears involved. As soon as it ended we hustled our butts to the bus area where the guys were waiting on a bench. You should never look back when you do this because the amount of people behind us was scary. We got on and got seats for the ride back to the hotel.
I took the kids to the room which was not easy since Owen was still asleep! Got everyone into jammies so we could just relax and watch some TV. While I did this Alan went down and got us a one topping pizza to eat in the room and we watched the Bachlorette!
This had been such a good day. No waits at all for anything and a great character lunch.
Favorite thing/most fun today: SPLASH mountain! Lib and I had so much fun doing this over and over. Also watching Owen be brave enough to do it. Our morning of no waiting for anything, and riding Buzz over and over with Owen. Crystal Palace lunch and last but not least getting to see WISHES! This was our best day of the week for sure!
We slept in a little today since we were so worn out today. I was really wishing we had gone to the parks on Sunday and we then could have had today as a non park day. I had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and realized that something was really wrong with my foot. It was not the ankle but the foot. It really felt like something inside there was broken. I’d not had that kind of pain since I broke my ankle years ago. As I laid in bed this morning I thought seriously about having it x-ray’d but also thought that if I had broken something surely I would have known it. Also not having a rental car made this difficult. So instead I did nothing. After all I was at Disney with 2 park days left and I didn’t want to waste any time.
We couldn’t decide what park to do today. If the others had suggested taking the day off I would not have argued ( I even hinted ) but they seemed anxious to head out. We had a PS for 1pm at LeCellier but decided to change it to dinner. This way we could go to MGM for the daytime hours and over to Epcot for the evening. We tried calling to do it but just got put on hold. So we went down to guest services to do this and the line was huge so we didn’t do anything with it for now.
By the time we got to MGM it was around 10:30 or so. I left Alan and Lib in line with the camera bag and stroller while Owen and I entered the park and sat and waited for them. We saw on the board that the 2 big rides were only listed as a 10 minutes wait so I told them to go ahead and go. We will meet them in about 90 minutes. Owen and I would go to the Indiana Jones show that started in 30 minutes. First we thought we could do the Great Movie Ride quickly since we missed it the other day. I have never in all my trips ever seen a line for this ride. But today once we entered the building there was a line! UGH! My foot is killing me and we waited in line about 15 minutes. Owen liked the ride except the brief alien part. Once we got done it was the exact time for the Ind. Jones show to be starting so we tried to hurry which really was a joke! We made it in and had just missed them picking the audience members. I have seen this show but not in years. I know we have never taken Owen to it so it has been along time. I didn’t expect him to like it I just thought it was something we could do sitting down. However, he loved it and talked about it to the others all day. He loved all the explosions and bad guys. He’s a boy what can I say.
The crowd leaving the show was so huge and then we exited nowhere near our stroller so it took forever. Owen treated himself to a juice box from the bag and sucked it down before I had zipped the bag and taken the brake off the stroller and wanted another one! These are small drinks but still!
We slowly walked toward Tower of Terror but we found them just as we passed the villain’s store. They looked in some shops at the pins and then we remembered the PS that we had for 1pm still. So lib and I sat on a bench and people watched while Al and Owen went to the front of the park to change it. He got it for 6pm.
Now ready for lunch we went down by Tower of Terror and burgers and fries while Owen of course had chicken. The plan was that Owen and I would go watch beauty and the beast while they rode Tower since for some reason they didn’t get on it earlier. They had rode Rock-in-Roller coaster several times. But as they walked away to go ride Owen yells that he wants to go too. We were all shocked. The little chicken wanted to ride with his dad so bad he was willing to go on it. We even tried to talk him out of it but he wanted to go. They tried to get me to go but no way, not me. While waiting I noticed that Buzz and Woody would only be out for another 30 minutes and then not again till after the parade. Since we wanted to leave for epcot later I knew we needed to get over there and see them NOW! Owen hadn’t gotten a pic with buzz all week. I was afraid they would be leaving by the time we got there but we got lucky. There was a good sized line though so Alan got in line with him. I took some pics and then we went to the HISTA playground to let the kids play. About 30 minutes later we went to the Who wants to be a Millionaire show. Owen doesn’t care for this at all. On the 1st fastest finger question Olivia was listed as #3!! We were so excited. It scared her to death though because her worst nightmare is to be picked and have to go sit in the hot seat!!
After all that fun we made our way out of MGM and took the slow boat to epcot. It makes so many stops I really wish they had one boat that just went between MGM and epcot. I did get a nice long rest for my foot though. We had an hour and a half before dinner so we went to France and watched the guy that stacks the chairs up high and stands on them. We have never seen this before so we really enjoyed it. Then to Morocco and saw Genie, Aladin, and Jasmine, Owen was afraid of Genie so he wouldn’t get his pic taken. Did some pin trading and made a few other stops mostly just pin trading. We went to Canada about 15 minutes early to eat and had to wait. Alan was grumpy because there were so many empty tables and yet people were waiting and freezing too. Finally we are seated we had the breadsticks and of course pretzel is our favorite. Alan and I had the cheese soup. And we split a steak and added an extra side of potatoes and Olivia had the kids steak. It was so good once again we were wishing we hadn’t split our meal! We thought that with the soup and breadsticks we would be fine. But, we had not expected the steak and mashed potatoes to be so darn good! Alan who eats out at very nice places on business trips and has had his fair share of steak said it was one of the best ones he’s ever had. Owen had a hot dog and decided that he had to go to the bathroom right in the middle of the meal. Lucky for us we were sitting right in front of the bathrooms. Well I took him and that kid was in there forever! And he stunk the place up and I mean bad! The bathrooms here are so close to where everyone sits I thought for sure that when we opened the door to go out the odor would escape and people would look! Thankfully this did not happen. We decided not to get dessert and said we would get something in the park. When we left the crowd waiting to get in was just huge!
We headed over to test track because lib wanted to go on it one last time. Well by the time we got there she was having a very bad stomach ache and was doubled over in pain. I think it was just cramps. We sat awhile to see if she would feel better but she didn’t so we headed out. As we are leaving the park she got to feeling so bad that she had to stop at and lay on every bench from the exit to the Pop bus stop. Well there are a lot of benches along the way and I thought we would never get there. Plus let’s not forget my foot! We were just quite a pair. I bet it took us an hour to get from Canada to the bus stop. So when we come around the corner and see all the people lined up at the bus stop we are thinking this doesn’t look good. Illuminations isn’t even going to start for another hour or more. We waited about 25-30 minutes with some very angry guests. Luckily lib was waiting over on a bench this whole time. Of course when it shows up it is standing room only but Lib and I got a seat and I had Owen on my lap. There was a little girl about 3years old sitting in front of us with her head on her mothers shoulder facing us and she was coughing like she had pneumonia! She sounded terrible and everyone on the bus was just looking at them. So as we pull up to the hotel we are going to be exiting out the back of the bus but we just stay seated and let everyone go ahead of us. This poor lady who thought that bus was pull up to the curb stepped down and just fell flat on the concrete! She didn’t realize that there was space where the bus wasn’t pulled up really close and you had to step down onto the road and then step up onto the sidewalk. If that had been me I would have surely broke something. I still can’t believe she didn’t. She just got up and walked away from it and the bus driver didn’t even see that it had happened since it was at the back exit. Also Olivia’s stomach ache went away on the bus ride back.
We entered into the gift shop area and had to buy Owen the buzz toy that he had decided to spend his money on. He wanted it this morning but we didn’t want to drag it to the parks all day. It was the laser that looks just like the one you shoot on the Buzz ride. Olivia got some links for her bracelet, a mickey a tink. Then up to the room and no longer did we get there then everyone remembers that they didn’t get there dessert. We were already getting into pajamas so we sent Alan and Owen down. A mickey bar for Owen, hand dipped ice cream for lib and an ice cream sandwich for me and Al to split. It was so good I was upset we had been there all week and just now tried one. Watched TV then to sleep.
Favorite thing/most fun today: Today was Owen’s day he enjoyed Indiana Jones stunt show, he was brave enough to try Tower of Terror (once), and he meet Buzz again up close and personal. For Alan and Lib it would be Tower of Terror and Rock-n-Roller Coaster. And we all loved that dinner in Canada at LeCellier.
Worst: Well of course my FOOT! This day was kindof a blur of foot pain for me. But they were all having so much fun I tried to hide it as much as I could. Also Lib’s stomach ache when we wanted to ride Test Track in the evening. Alan told her that just him and her could come back the next day and do it but they both forgot till it was too late.
Today was our last day in the parks and last full day of vacation. So it was up and go go go! My foot still has some pain but it is NOTHING like yesterday. I am very happy about this since I thought it would be worse from being on it all day. Also very happy because no afternoon breaks for our last day. I think we only took afternoon breaks on the 1st two days and only napped on one of them. That is surprising because we usually always take a break. I think if the weather had been a few degree’s warmer so we could swim we would have done that in the afternoons. It was always cool in the mornings and almost downright cold at night but the afternoons were always tshirt and shorts. (except the day we flew in!)
We got the bus to the MK and we got lucky and they dropped us off at the All star drop off spot which was closer. Boy, was that a full bus though. I sat with a lady on the bus from New York and they were there for 12 days! So said they always stay at moderates but this time chose a value so they could stay longer. I told her I was worried about the smaller room size and she said “is it smaller than the mods?” She hadn’t even noticed! I mostly noticed the size when trying to exit the room and the door almost touches the side of the bed. They could use a little extra space there.
We went straight to pick up the pic of us in front of the castle but they were having trouble with the machine. Finally it worked and we just had it sent to the front of the park since it was too close to our check out time to send it to the hotel. Luckily at the end of the day Alan remembered it because I had forgotten all about it.
Guess where we went next? Buzzlightyear ride of course! But, when we got there at 9:30am we were in for a shock. The line was longer than any line we had seen all week long. It was about 15 minutes but we had never waited at all the whole week. We got fast passes and got in line to wait. By the time we came off we only had to wait about 5 minutes to use the fast passes. Our pal mickey wasn’t working right and was saying crazy things that made no sense at all so alan took it in to have them look at it and they just exchanged it with no questions asked. I guess there isn’t much they can do to fix them so they just gave us another one. Personally I LOVE mickey but I didn’t care for Pal Mickey at all. Oliva and Alan played with him, Owen also didn’t care for him.
While Alan was in taking care of that we saw for the 1st time after many trips the talking trash can. I have always heard about this and never thought it was a big deal or anything but it was so cute the way it was talking to Olivia. She had on a tinkerbell sunhat that said Miss Attitude and he came up to her and said “what kind of attitude do you have”? She said a bad one. He says awww I don’t think so come give me a hug and she just looks at me like am I really supposed to go hug a trash can? But she did it anyway and everyone was watching her. Then the trash can says “see you have a loving attitude, maybe your bad attitude is because you are missing the top part of your hat”! We all laughed and she was soooo red in the face!! She won’t be forgetting that for awhile! After it was all over Alan comes walking out of the store he had missed the whole thing!
So we are now headed over to Big Thunder but Alan and Owen thought they would cut through Adventureland for an egg roll while the girls went on ahead to ride. Once we got there we realized that Alan had the park passes so we couldn’t even get a fast pass for later. Big thunder had a line so we went on Splash 2 times with a 3-5 minute wait. We found the guys sitting at the splash playground area, Alan was eating his egg roll and had gotten me one and Owen was having McDonald’s fries. Why is it that this is the only place where you can get fresh hot Mcdondals fries? Lib and I decided to go on splash one last time for our last ride this trip. We never got very wet at all. Olivia always asked for the back row. As we came off Owen said he wanted to ride it now so we all went on again. So much for that last ride of the trip, but we didn’t mind at all. Since it was not overly warm out this was the only thing that didn’t have a wait time. The guys got the back row this time and we sat in front of them. Owen didn’t like it but it was too late now and Lib and I got WET! Owen stayed dry though so that was good! Now at this point we still hadn’t rode big thunder today and just remembered that we hadn’t gotten fast passes either. (stupid!) The wait was 25 minutes which for some might not be long but for us it was. We went ahead and got a fast pass for later and then did the child swap so I rode with Lib and then Alan did.
After our turns on big thunder we were more than ready for lunch so we took the train to the front of the park. We never used the fast passes since our time wasn’t ready yet. We took the waiting boat over to Fort Wilderness. This is something we have never done and it was a very nice rest from our busy non stop riding. I never knew that the lake was this big we have only gone on a boat to the Poly of Grand Floridian. We saw a little peek of River Country which is now closed but we went there in 1995 at the beginning of the 25th anniversary. The 1st time I saw the castle painted pink was through the trees from River country. So we found our way to the Trails End Buffet we couldn’t believe how quiet this whole area was. You would never know there was a noisy theme park just across the lake. This was a great break from the parks and we will defiantly be doing this again. We got here at almost 2pm and they stop seating people at 2:30. Left the stroller out front on the porch area but as soon as we fixed our plates and cut up owens food he fell asleep sitting up! We couldn’t believe his face didn’t fall into his plate! So Alan went out and got the stroller to put him in and he slept through the whole thing. The place was almost empty and with him asleep we had a very quiet meal. It was a little different then some buffets the only side dish that anyone liked was mac and cheese. They had corn bread, biscuits, 2 soups, a salad bar, fried chicken (very good!) fried fish, pizza, and deli style sandwiches. For dessert they had apple crisp and donuts. It was all very good and we were stuffed but the only thing that was missing (besides mashed potatoes!) was vanilla ice cream for that apple crisp. We were not complaining though. Our waitress saw that Owen fell asleep before he could eat what was on his plate so she gave us something to put his food in even though you can’t take food to go at buffet’s. She also didn’t charge us for him either.
After 10 minutes or so sitting on the porch rocking in the chairs we went and got on the boat which was waiting, again! Owen was still asleep even with the boat blowing the horn.
As we re-entered the MK it was 3:30 and the parade was just coming around the corner so we stood and watched it. We never watch parades from main street so this was nice and made it look just like the commercials. We are always in frontierland during the parade. With Owen still asleep we remembered our Fast Passes for big thunder. Alan said he would walk with the stroller and Lib and I could hop on the train to ride it back there and he will just meet us there. Isn’t that nice! Plus he walked through every store looking for pins.
This worked out well, Lib and I rode twice with the 4 fast passes. When we meet up with them Owen was awake and in a good mood. He was eating his lunch and having his drink. He ate both pieces of fish. We walked over and all rode haunted mansion. Then since Owen had been asleep most of the afternoon we let him pick anything he wanted to do. We were all shocked when he said Peter Pan and not Buzz! The wait for peter pan was 30 minutes but we didn’t want to tell him no so we got in line. (we must really love that kid) As we waited we realized that it was almost the exact same time of day that we were in MK on Wed. and had fantasyland to ourselves. We chatted with two nice older ladies while in line. They did not know too much about the parks and asked if they had to pay extra to watch WISHES! We told them we watched from in front of the train station and they didn’t even know there was a train in the park. After 30 minutes we knew each others life story. They were staying at the Buena Vista Suites.
Once we got done flying with Peter and Wendy we rode the Carrousel and then went to ride Buzz one last time. We ended up riding twice. Owen wanted to drive the race cars along the way but we said no way are we waiting in that line. (I guess we don’t love him that much!) He was wound up and ready to go after that long nap and we were dragging along!
Now done with all our rides for this trip we headed to the front of the park just as they said 10 minutes till fireworks. As we watched again in front of the train station Alan went over to pick up our pic from this morning that we had waiting for us. He will never just stand still and watch the fireworks! I of course had another tear in my eye or on my cheek as we exited the magic kingdom for the last time. (well, for this trip at least!)
Out to the bus with the huge crowds and as we were waiting for the bus to arrive we saw the two ladies that we waited with at Peter Pan. They were walking aimlessly on the sidewalk that takes you over toward the Contemporary and then they just cut right across the parking lot where all the bus’s were coming and going. We felt sorry for them because they looked very very lost! Since there hotel was offsite they needed to be getting to the TTC to catch there bus and I don’t think they knew this at all. They were too far away with the loud bus’s for us to be of any help to them.
Back at the hotel we looked around the gift shop since you have to enter it to get in from where the bus drops you off at. I don’t really like that part at all. Kids who are tired and half asleep on the bus wake right up in that gift shop. We went to refill our mugs and decided to get something to eat. Alan had a chili cheese dog, the kids had nuggets and fried and I had that ice cream sandwich that alan and I had shared the other night. That is the best thing I have ever eaten. I couldn’t go home without having another one. I of course didn’t order mine till they had ordered there food so that they wouldn’t think they could have ice cream for dinner! Sneaky. I did end up sharing it with lib since it was too big.
Once we got to the room I started packing a little while they watched TV. Alan emptied the ice out of the cooler too. Then when I went to pack up the family pic of us in front of the castle I took it out and looked at it since I had only seen it on there screen a couple days ago. Well it had something weird all over it. At 1st I thought maybe but was supposed to be there like it was pixie dust of something but it wasn’t. It was just something with the developing and there were just specs of stuff all over us. Alan took it down to guest services and asked them about it. They told us we could have another one taken for free but we are leaving so we can’t do that so they just took the charge for it off our room bill. That was funny since the only things we charged to the room were the 2 pics that were taken in the parks. This one and the one at Buzz. So we kept the pic but at least we didn’t have to pay for it since it is messed up! From a distance you probably can’t tell it but up close you really can. Too bad this is the only one we had done all week of all of us.
Now off to sleep for one last night at Disney.
Favorite thing/most fun today: hmmm…. I would have to say that the talking trash can making Olivia give him a hug. Plus Olivia and I had lots of fun on splash and big thunder and the one time we all rode it together. Taking the boat ride and eating at fort wilderness. Also Owen after his nap he was so wound up and ready to go! He was really having a good time. Watching Wishes again and that ice cream cookie for dinner.
Worst: That there were more crowds today than all week. That our pic was messed up and that it was our last day!!
Up today about 8:30 the weather is supposed to be up to 77 today which would be the warmest day all week. We had high hopes of swimming since our flight is not till later. Showered and Alan went to go find out about the van that picks you up at your hotel to take you to get the rental car. We have seen it all week picking people up at Pop. He got the phone number to call and tried calling but they kept hanging up on him! They would put him on hold and then he would end up getting hung up on. This was off an on while I fixed breakfast for all and everyone got dressed. He finally gave up and took a bus to MGM and then the boat over to the Dolphin. He said the guy working the rental car desk was a rude jerk. Took him an hour and a half so I got the whole place all packed up. While we were still waiting on him I took the kids down to that darn gift shop and Olivia bought some birthstone earrings. These are the same ones she bought a couple years ago but lost one in a swimming pool. I bought a Pop postcard for my fridge. We refilled our mugs and meet up with Alan walking toward the room. We gave away some extra juice boxes to some little kids moving into the room next to us. We didn’t have room for them and didn’t want them in the luggage.
Got the car loaded up and for some reason it fit better than before because nobody had to ride with luggage on there lap! We still had part of the day to kill and we were coming back to the hotel to swim but 1st we had some offsite things to do.
We drove over to Belz outlet and got a couple things. Owen got a buzz voice changer that was at our hotel gift shop for $15 but it was only $6.99 here. Lib got a shirt and bought her “boyfriend” (Trevor) a pirate’s wallet for $4.99.
Stopped at taco bell and Owen fell asleep for the whole car ride from the mall back to the hotel. We took the taco’s back to eat outside at the hotel. Refilled those mugs one last time and had lunch. After we were done we changed into suits in the pool side changing rooms and went for a swim. It never did get up to 77 today maybe 70. But we really wanted to try that pool our and had already told the kids we could today since we thought it would be warmer. We only lasted about 45 minutes in the water it was cold! The water temp wasn’t freezing but could have been warmer. When we stayed at the Poly in Jan. a few years ago that water was warm. This was not warm but the air was a killer! Brrrrr.
We got changed and I dried my hair with the blow dryer they had in the bathroom. We ordered Owen a nugget meal since he slept through our Taco bell ordering and would never eat taco’s anyway. Loaded into the car and he ate on the way to Tampa. Left the hotel parking lot at 3pm. The kids were awake for the drive over (and even through the flight home.) Had to top the car off with gas before returning it. We had some chik-fil-a at the airport for dinner right before our 6pm flight. There were some very annoying pre-teen girls on the plane which was only about half full. They decided to sit where ever they wanted and took the row behind us. They were so loud that the kids couldn’t even hear the DVD they were trying to watch on the laptop. We really wanted them to move and they were sitting in an exit row which they aren’t old enough to do. Finally the flight attendant came by and questioned them about sitting in the exit row but since they were also watching a DVD she told them to move when they were done with the movie! We could hear there movie better than ours.
Landed in St. Louis, got the hotel shuttle over to pick up our van, loaded it up and tried to get warm for the 2 hour drive home. Brrrrrrr!!